Degrees of Separation
by redex
Summary: PG for SiriusRemus. I finally believe now that it is better to feel this pain than to feel nothing at all. Because when there is pain, there is life, and where there is life, there is hope.[ONESHOT]


A Sirius/Remus once again. Takes place post-PoA, and pre-OotP, if you're wondering.

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**Degrees of Separation**

_by_

_**Redex**_

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I finally believe now that it is better to feel this pain than to feel nothing at all. Because when there is pain, there is life, and where there is life, there is hope.

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At first, I thought he was going to come back. A part of me that was not so small was just repeating over and over "it wasn't him, they'll let him go, he'll come back.  
The slow agony of the dawning fear that he might not come back was one of the most painful experiences of my life. It is one of the reasons why I didn't like to hear him mentioned afterwards.  
I can't believe I'm going through it again. It was like a slow, omnipresent weight, a malicious demon that had a hand on the string of our hearts and tugged on it whenever fond remembrances threatened to draw us closer together, if only in spirit. Because of this, I isolated myself. It was painful just to have to be with people; most of the time it was easier just to lie at home in my misery. But I didn't die.  
And I eventually realized I had to live. Live without him. Live without them all.  
I was lost at first. I felt like I must have an aura of sadness that floated around me, but when I realized that I could loose myself in these happy, uncaring and oblivious people, I started to forget.  
I was scared of forgetting, but that was what I did. And then, after nearly ten years of this grace, history came and yanked my chain once again, in the form of my old schoolteacher and mentor, Albus Dumbledore.  
Sure, we had kept in contact: he was my connection to Harry, my last surviving connection to the past. He was the one who told me that Sirius had escaped. He offered me a position at the school, and maybe he guessed what was going to happen. Sometimes you can't tell with him.  
Sirius.  
A connection to my past best forgotten, or so I had thought. He still existed, if only having been mutilated into that creature that was so hunted by society. Even though I didn't know what I would do if I faced him, I accepted the teaching position.  
But then...being back at the school, with Harry and his precocious friends of his, and all those niches so familiar and haunting... I had nights where I stayed up, not because of an impending full moon, but because I was just remembering. Sirius...James...Peter... Gone.  
And I contemplated how we try and save bits of ourselves in the things we leave behind. That column that was chipped by an errant bludger smuggled into the Great Hall by Sirius and James, those scrawls on the walls of the Shrieking Shack, even a few notes in the column of a dark arts book that I could swear were in my own writing. Someone could look at these things in a few hundred years and never have any idea the value that they have to me, and maybe in a hundred years the entire castle will be torn down. I don't know. Then Sirius was in the school. I found myself thinking, "What if I'm off in a transformation, and that's when he comes, and he kills Harry and I never see him"  
It didn't make sense. And that was when the ache came back again. It hurt; it hurt like the purest holy water on my soul. Except now ihe/i was supposed to be the tainted one - I was the one leading a normal life. I should have known better, but I still believed, then, that Sirius had killed Peter. I believed that Sirius had betrayed Lily and James. And now, when I look back on those days, I shudder on the thoughts I had of Sirius. And then, that night. It was a full moon and I can't say I was quite sane. Perhaps it was easy for sceptics to say I wasn't. But believe what I had before, this was still Sirius. Still the mutt in a purebred's body, still the gruff but intelligent conspirator. But now he was conspiring on something much darker, and I saw it. And when Ron's rat turned into Peter... I nearly threw up, and wanted to hug Sirius all over again and tell him how sorry I was. I didn't then, but I did afterwards. After Peter got away.  
After Sirius had to run.  
But there were times where he stayed at my home. I cherished those brief, all too brief times. And in between was the ache of a tied heart, tugged to span the distance between us.

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Comments, Critism, Declarations of Undying Love? 


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